Yesterday, USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) announced a major expansion to the microloan program. Starting on November 7th, the cap on microloans will be raised from $35,000 to $50,000. We are thrilled to see FSA expand this program that is critical to young farmers!
Microloans provide operating loans to small and beginning farmers. They have less paperwork than a typical FSA loan and allow for a repayment period as long as seven years. Since the... Read More

Yes, we have a farm bill. Let me repeat that, for those who’ve been hearing us talk about this this so much over the past two years: we now have a new five-year farm bill.
This marks the conclusion of a monumental effort over the past two and a half years to pass a bill; since the last bill expired, many programs have foundered without Congressional authorization or at best, coasted along on auto-pilot.
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President Obama signing the farm bill. Image courtesy of whitehouse.gov.
It’s official – we now have a farm bill. On Friday, President Obama officially signed it into law, marking the end of two years of campaigning.
As we previously reported, the bill is a mixed bag of good and bad. Funding for many beginning farmer programs, including the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, are at the highest level we could hope for. ... Read More